


The Nature of Incandescence

by thegreatpumpkin



Series: A Heart Can't Be Helped [5]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: ...did I just write fluff?, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Twincest, psychic twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:30:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elladan is incandescent; Elrohir is waiting for the other shoe to drop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nature of Incandescence

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote some self-indulgent nonsense for my birthday. Now I'm inflicting it on you!
> 
> (Beta by the magnificent [ouroboros](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ouroboros/), who doesn't even go here. Bless.)

Elladan was incandescent.

It was an apt description, metaphorically speaking: sometimes it hurt Elrohir to look at him, made his eyes water. He did it anyway, couldn't _stop_ looking, because he had never seen his brother like this.

It was the opposite of what Elrohir had expected, to be honest. He thought, on their road trip, that this mood would last a few days—or if he were really lucky, until they got close to home. Then the fear would come creeping back, weighing Elladan down bit by tiny bit, undoing all of Elrohir’s careful reassurances. (Or worse than fear, regret. They couldn’t undo what was done, but how would he bear it, if Elladan wished they could?)

He had braced for it with every mile that ticked by on the drive back. Elladan sang along with the stereo, punching the skip button every time something less than jubilant came on; Elrohir smiled and held his breath, trying not to ruin it the way you try not to ruin a Sunday by thinking about Monday (and never, ever succeed). Elladan wasn’t oblivious—he’d glance over now and again, his grin fading down to something gentler, though still radiating joy. _You okay?_ Or once— _we okay?_

“Yeah,” Elrohir would say, and mean it. Because he was, they were, _everything_ was; at least until the other shoe dropped, and he had no desire to hasten it along.

But it never had. When they’d gotten back to the apartment—trip stuff hauled in if not unpacked—Elladan was still smiling and easy, tension absent. He’d ordered pizza and stretched out in front of the television, and when Elrohir hovered uncertainly, he’d caught him by the wrist and hauled him down into an embrace, curling around him with unreserved affection. They watched the tail-end of a _Criminal Minds_ marathon, ate their pizza, went to bed.

In the morning, Elladan tried to get ready for work without waking him, but it was out of consideration, not guilt. (When Elrohir woke up anyway, goodbye kisses turned into more, nearly making Elladan late—he didn’t seem at all sorry. Elrohir suspected if he’d had any more vacation time left he would have called in on the spot.)

Elrohir wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“What’s going on with your brother?”

Elrohir had always been close to both of his siblings—closer than they were to each other—and he usually had a finger on the pulse of both their lives. Usually, he didn’t mind when their parents asked him this sort of question; Arwen had their grandmother’s tendency to hide anything that might show weakness, and Elladan kept everything close to the vest, good or bad. Elrohir shared more than his siblings would have liked if they’d known, probably, though he did try not to betray any confidences. But now, having lunch with his mother, he was wishing he’d been a little less helpful in the past. He looked up, fork halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean?”

Celebrían fixed him with a keen look. “You know what I mean. He’s less stressed than he’s been in a long time.” She sipped her iced tea. “I assume the fact that you’re pretending not to means it’s something he doesn’t want me to know. Oh god, please tell me he hasn’t quit his job. Or picked up a drug habit.”

“No! _Mom_. It’s nothing like that.” He took the bite, then rearranged his croutons, considering how to formulate the story. “You know I can’t tell you everything he says.”

She smiled. “Even though I keep trying to convince you otherwise. I know.” This wasn’t the first time he’d had to be evasive about Elladan; she knew the routine. “Vague terms, then?”

“Yeah. Hang on, I’m trying to think of what I can say.” Of course, lies close to the truth were always the best, but here he’d have to be more careful than usual. “We talked about a lot of stuff while we were on vacation. He had...some things he needed to work through.”

“Can I have any hints? I just need to know how concerned to be. Are we talking ‘some things to work through’ like _I’m not over my ex_ , or ‘some things to work through’ like _I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die_?”

Elrohir rolled his eyes. “Well, I know where he gets his tendency for exaggeration.” He drummed his fingers on the table beside his plate. “We’re going to be thirty this year, you know.” It wasn’t an answer, but she took it as one, as she was meant to.

“As if I could forget,” Celebrían sighed. “I swear, you were just starting kindergarten a few days ago...anyway, it’s a little early for a midlife crisis, kiddo.”

“That’s what I said. Okay, not really, he would _not_ have taken it well.” He grinned thinking about it—Elladan _would_ be very indignant, if that had been relevant to any of their conversations. “But I did let him talk through it, and gave him some advice, and...I don’t know if it was actually helpful, but obviously _he_ feels like it helped.”

“They do say middle children are supposed to be the helpers.” She tousled his hair affectionately, then stacked the dishes in her lap, wheeling her chair over to the sink. “Okay, enough about your brother. When are you going to let me cut that hair?”

***

By mid-August, Elrohir had stopped holding his breath; stopped waiting for Elladan to reach for him before he dared to reach back; he’d almost, but not quite, stopped worrying about the inevitable.

Elrohir was stretched out on his side, eyes half-closed in bliss, a hand loosely curled into Elladan’s hair; Elladan was wrapped around him from behind, lips against his neck and arm tight across his chest, thrusting slowly into him. Elrohir was floating, buoyed up on a tide of pleasure and lazy, delicious desire. And then—

Elladan drew breath to speak. It wasn’t unexpected—Elladan’s propensity for dirty talk was well-established—but for some reason Elrohir had the sudden feeling of cresting the first hill on a roller coaster. Just time enough to think _here it comes_ before the drop.

“Do you trust me yet?” Elladan breathed against his ear.

He kept up the slow motion of his hips, so it took Elrohir a moment to formulate a response. And faced with such a non-sequitur, it wasn’t a very intelligent one. “Wh—mm—what?”

“Not to panic.” Trust Elladan to get him in this state before asking such a loaded question. “I know that’s what you’ve been waiting for. Do you trust me not to panic yet?” His tone was gently curious, though, not accusing.

“Of course I trust you. It’s not like that. It’s just—” Elrohir broke off, a soft breathless noise welling in his throat. “Can we talk about this later?”

“No,” Elladan said warmly, his hand sliding downwards over Elrohir’s rib cage and then lower. “I want a real answer.” He paused with his palm spread flat over Elrohir’s stomach, pressing him back into a certain thrust in a way that made Elrohir’s breath catch. “It’s all right if the answer is no.”

Elrohir turned his face into his arm and tried to think of anything other than the feel of Elladan inside him. “It’s not...I’m not worried that you’re going to pull away from me. It’s more—ohfuck, can you— _yes, like that._ ” Asking this way was clever on Elladan’s part if he wanted forthrightness; it was difficult enough to keep his thoughts collected, never mind attempting obfuscation. Elrohir drew a breath and tried again. “This isn’t _you_ , much though I love it. You’re not carefree. You’re a terrible liar and you have a terrible poker face. I don’t understand how you’re _not_ panicking.” Was that too much? Maybe that was too much. Maybe he should have—

Elladan laughed, and Elrohir’s heart turned over in his chest. “I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty carefree right now,” he murmured, his fingers curving around the back of Elladan’s thigh, shifting their position a little as he sped his rhythm. “But,” and Elrohir was pleased to hear a little breathlessness in his voice now, “this isn’t _you_ either. You _don’t_ worry. You—ah _,_ _Ro_ —you solve problems by ignoring them until they—until they go away or blow up in your face.”

Elrohir wanted to be playful, wanted to make some kind of obscene joke about things blowing up in his face, but there was something all too serious in this conversation (however lightly Elladan was taking it). “That’s not true. I do worry, at least about you.” Elladan kissed his jaw, tenderly; Elrohir shivered and went on. “You’re so _up_ right now. I want—I want to think that’s because of me—”

“It is because of you,” Elladan confirmed, and then, fondly— _you idiot._

“But when you come back down, that will be because of me too. I don’t want you to feel that way. I just don’t know how to stop it.” Elrohir tensed a little; he was finding it difficult to focus on both things at once, and now his worry had come to the forefront.

Elladan’s thumb rubbed a little reassuring circle where it rested against his skin. “You don’t have to. I’m not saying there won’t be rough times, but I’m not going to be down again. Not like you mean, anyway.”

Elrohir wanted that to be true. “But nothing’s changed, not really. The things you were worried about before—”

Elladan sighed and stopped moving, nuzzling the side of Elrohir’s face, brushing their lips together when Elrohir craned back to look at him. “ _Everything’s_ changed. Just—okay, listen. Remember when I was afraid of the dark?”

Elrohir blinked, thrown off. “No?”

“Yes you do. We went on the field trip to the museum, and I wouldn’t go in the planetarium because I knew they would turn the lights off and they wouldn’t let me sit next to you so I was scared. I had to sit outside on the hard marble floor with a museum employee for twenty minutes because they couldn’t leave me unsupervised. Remember?”

Elrohir decided to humor the tangent. “Okay, yeah, kinda. I think I was too interested in _stars indoors_ to pay much attention at the time, sorry. But you got over it, right? I mean, we went back with Mom and Dad later.”

“I didn’t get over it. I just decided to stop being scared.”

Elrohir started to see where this was going. “That’s...it’s not that easy. You don’t just _decide_ not to be scared.”

“Yeah, you do.” Elladan shifted back, rolling Elrohir onto his back and then bending over him, bringing their faces close together. “Because sitting outside was _awful_. But worse—” and here he kissed Elrohir, soft and lingering— “I was missing out on the stars.”

Elrohir made an aggrieved sound. “Oh my god, are you being metaphorical _and_ romantic? Stop. _Stop_.”

Elladan laughed, grabbing his shoulder to keep him from escaping, and dropped his voice low to breathe in his ear. “Come on, Rohir, don’t you want to make me see stars?”

Elrohir squawked and shoved him, unable to quash the laughter rising up. “Get off me, you’re the worst. Literally the worst at romance, ever.”

“No, come on, that was clever, fuck you.” Elladan pressed him down and bit his shoulder, grinning triumphantly. “I just thought it up on the spot, you should be impressed.”

“You should be _embarrassed._ It was terrible.” Elrohir rested a hand lightly on the back of Elladan’s head. “Did you want to have a serious conversation, or not? Because if not I’d really like to get back to our previous activity.”

“What, seeing stars?” Elladan huffed a laugh as Elrohir poked him. “I _was_ serious, though,” he said into Elrohir’s chest. “About the—I decided to stop being afraid of, I don’t know, whatever. It wasn’t doing me any good.”

“Thank goodness for that, I can’t sleep unless it’s completely dark.”

“ _Rohir._ I mean about this.”

“I know.” Elrohir sighed and pulled his fingers through Elladan’s short hair, a thoughtful motion. “And I don’t want you to be, but...you weren’t _wrong,_ before. It _would_ be a shitstorm if…”

“Fuck _if_.” Elladan propped himself up again. “ _If_ only exists if we’re not careful. And don’t try to pretend like you’re not careful, or like you don’t have excuses prepared for literally every possible eventuality, because I know better.” Elrohir smiled faintly and didn’t deny it. “Thought so. You probably make that shit up on your lunch break when you get bored.”

“One of us has to. Mom already asked me what your deal is lately.”

Elladan smirked. “Good thing you’re not the one who’s a terrible liar. You can coach me on what _my deal_ is supposed to be later.”

“Mmhmm. So I was thinking,” Elrohir said, rubbing his foot along Elladan’s calf, “since you’re so ‘carefree’ now, maybe you could stop with all the serious talk and get back to _fucking me_.”

Elladan examined him wryly. “Hmm, yes, it’s clear you have a _high_ standard of romance. Comparing you to the stars is amateur hour. ‘Shut up and fuck me,’ now, that’s true poetry.”

“Elladan—”

“— _focus_ ,” Elladan said at the same time Elrohir did, and laughed at his indignant look. “You always say that when I’m not moving fast enough for you.”

Elrohir pulled him down, insistently. “I swear to god, I will—”

“Easy,” Elladan said, then dropped his voice to a quiet growl, “ _easy_.” It worked, that tone always did; Elrohir subsided, panting softly in the silence, and didn’t complain when Elladan kissed a trail down his body instead of sliding into him again.

“So?” Elladan asked, after a pause just long enough for Elrohir to completely lose the thread of the conversation. It didn’t help that he was rubbing the head of Elrohir’s cock back and forth along his bottom lip, the word coming out as a soft huff of warm breath against oversensitive skin.

“So?” Elrohir repeated, distractedly.

“Can we all just agree—” and here Elladan’s tongue flicked out, tracing a small but devastating circle— “that I’m not going to panic?”

Elrohir reached for him, cradling Elladan’s head between his palms. “I will agree to _literally anything_ if you’ll stop torturing me.”

“I love when you make ill-advised promises.” Elladan tongued his way down Elrohir’s length, then took him in entirely—and oh _, god_ , he knew what his brother liked.

Elrohir gasped, his hands sliding into Elladan's hair again. _I love you._

Elladan squeezed his hip in acknowledgement, looking up at him warmly.

_Yeah. I was tired of missing out on that._


End file.
